Why do you believe?

Honestly, there are kind of two sides to this.

There’s the “logical” side, like, why do I believe in God? Honestly, I don’t think there’s any solid argument that fully proves or disproves any religion. The way I understand the world is that we’re probably not the only civilization out there (space is huge). And we’re already heading toward developing things that could “simulate” life: video games, VR, AI… So it’s not too crazy to think that, maybe thousands of years into the future, we could create simulations that feel just as real as what we experience now.

If there are that many civilizations, some might have existed for millions of years. So maybe they could simulate us. If we were created by some higher power, that could be what we call God. And if we are actually “real” (which is what I believe), then maybe there’s still some higher power responsible for our existence being genuine.

I also don’t fully understand how we go from random chemical reactions to things like love and certain emotions. I do believe in evolution, I believe in science, and I understand these processes, but certain experiences, like listening to your favorite song while looking out the window and feeling the cold night air, just feel too real to be our brains releasing chemicals for survival and reproduction.

Those are some of the arguments related to how I think the world works and why believing in God makes sense to me.

At the same time, I know these arguments are pretty weak. I’m not one of those overly religious people trying to come up with wild explanations. I honestly don’t think any of this can be proven tbh.

Then there’s the more “spiritual” side. I believe in God because it "feels right". I’m not very religious in practice, I’m baptized and I pray every day, but that’s about it. I don’t go to church (I don’t really like it as an institution), I have a boyfriend, and I support LGBTQ+ people (I’m bi myself). And yet, having faith still feels right.

It’s hard to explain, but things like praying before bed or simply having faith feel natural to me. I don’t think my morals or values depend on it, I think believing in God has more to do with how I understand the world and with wanting to thank whoever might be helping me.

As for the idea of feeling protected, it’s not something I think about often, but I do notice it sometimes after things happen. There are moments in life where I choose to do things the right way instead of taking the easy route, and somehow it feels like I’m rewarded in some way, kinda.

Basically, I don’t fully know why, but there’s something in me that makes believing in God feel similar to helping people or putting effort into something, it just feels “right.” It also fits with how I understand the world, so it works for me. Still, I don’t consider my faith a central part of my life, more like an answer I give to a specific aspect of life that I don’t really understand.

Once, while I was meditating, I saw a man standing by a river. He talked to me of his daughters and gave me advice for my health, and when I asked for his name, I couldn't catch it fully but I got the sounds "P" and "TL". After some weeks of poking around online, I found out about an Aztec medicine God named Patecatl. Before then I had no knowledge of Aztec gods and culture.

That convinced me that there's gods out there.

I'm Irish Pagan and was raised in a pretty chill UCC. It took me a long time to figure myself out but I'm happy with where I am. I'll be honest, I'm often skeptical of what I believe in. I'm not going to dump a whole manifesto in this one comment, but I pretty much view religion/spiritualism like I do aliens; it's a pretty crazy idea, but us being alone and there being nothing beyond what we know is even crazier. It's also just a comforting idea that there are things in the universe looking out for us :)